Fatah and Hamas gunmen attacked two universities and a radio station Friday in the deadliest single day of their violent power struggle. With the death toll climbing to 17 — including four children — the two sides declared another truce.
But they said they needed time to pull their volatile forces off the streets, and fierce gunbattles raged across Gaza in the hours after the announcement.
A cease-fire declared earlier in the week collapsed Thursday, and gunmen armed with mortar shells, rockets and heavy guns traded fire across the Gaza Strip. In all, two dozen Palestinians were killed and some 250 were wounded in the fighting.
In Washington, the so-called Quartet of Mideast negotiators met Friday to explore ways to jump-start peacemaking despite the violence among Palestinian factions.
‘There‘s simply no reason to avoid the subject of how we get to a Palestinian state,‘ Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after meeting with foreign ministers from the European Union, United Nations and Russia.
Frightened Gazans huddled in their homes Friday as gunmen battled in the streets. Civilians who did venture outside took cover from the crossfire at the entrances to shuttered stores, or cowered behind walls.
Casualties were so high that hospitals ran out of ambulances and people were forced to evacuate the wounded in private cars, carrying bloodied victims in their arms to the emergency room. One man carried in a boy who was shot in the head and later died of his wounds.
Health officials appealed for blood donors, saying they were running out of supplies.
More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in internal violence since the Islamic militant Hamas, which rejects Israel‘s right to exist, won parliamentary elections last year and ousted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas‘ more moderate Fatah movement from power.
The fighting Friday centered on two universities and a radio station — symbols of the factions‘ prestige.
Fatah fighters stormed Islamic University in Gaza City, a Hamas stronghold, setting fire to two buildings and sparking a heavy firefight with Hamas forces. Masked men in black uniforms ran through the campus and took up positions on the roof of the school‘s mosque.
Palestinian TV aired footage of dozens of rocket-propelled grenade launchers, rockets and assault rifles, as well as thousands of bullets that Abbas‘ presidential guard said were confiscated at the university.
Hamas gunmen vowed revenge and hours later attacked two buildings of the Fatah-affiliated Al-Quds University in Gaza, Palestinian security officials said. A witness said gunmen fired mortar rounds at a building at the Gaza City campus, then doused it with fuel. Black smoke rose from the building as gunmen clashed outside.
Frantic Gazans called local radio stations asking for help as armed men took position on their rooftops.
‘We hear more than we see,‘ said Ahed al-Shawa, 45, who lives opposite the Islamic University. ‘Even when you see shots flying, you don‘t know who is firing at who.‘
Al-Shawa said he hoped to venture outside for food and medicine, but wasn‘t hopeful because firefights persisted outside his apartment building after the truce announcement.
Most of Gaza City remained plunged in darkness after electrical facilities were damaged in gunbattles a day earlier.
In other violence Friday, Hamas gunmen blew up the Fatah-affiliated Voice of Labor radio station in the northern town of Jebaliya after a five-hour siege, according to Rasem Bayri, who heads the Palestinian Federation of Labor Unions.
In Gaza City, 50 officers from Abbas‘ presidential guard surrounded the Hamas-led Interior Ministry and exchanged fire with Hamas gunmen guarding the building. Five members of the presidential guard were killed.
Outside Gaza City, Hamas militants launched mortar rounds at a Fatah training base, wounding 30 recruits, security officials said. One shell missed the base, hitting a nearby house and wounding two children inside.
On Friday afternoon, leaders of Hamas and Fatah said they had agreed in principle to a new cease-fire, but needed to meet again to work out the details.
‘We, the leaders of the two groups, agreed with God‘s help on a cease-fire,‘ said Nizar Rayan, a regional Hamas leader, after the two sides met at the Egyptian Embassy in Gaza City. ‘The measures that will be taken on the ground will be discussed in the next few hours.‘
A Fatah spokesman, Abdel Hakim Awad, confirmed agreement was reached in principle.
Later, the al-Jazeera TV station said Abbas and Hamas‘ supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, had agreed, in a phone call, to an immediate truce. The two are to meet Tuesday in Saudi Arabia for a new round of talks on forming a coalition government, said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an Abbas spokesman.
Both Abu Rdeneh and a senior Damascus-based Palestinian official confirmed the two men spoke, but did not mention an immediate truce.
But the Damascus-based official said Mashaal phoned a meeting of Hamas and Fatah officials and emphasized the need for an immediate cease-fire.
The cease-fire talk did little to halt the fighting. Clashes were ongoing late Friday in at least seven spots across Gaza, including firefights near the bases of elite security forces loyal to Abbas.
Fatah spokesman Abdul al Hakim Awab said Hamas gunmen fired on a member of Fatah‘s negotiating team as he drove to Abbas‘ house, and one of his bodyguards was wounded. Egyptian mediators who were traveling in a convoy with the Fatah negotiator also came under fire, but escaped unharmed.
The U.N. said it would not reopen its schools in Gaza Saturday after a midyear recess because of the fighting. Nearly 200,000 students study at the schools.
Photo: Smoke rises from a building within the Islamic University, affiliated to the Hamas movement, which was hit during factional fighting between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza City, Friday, Feb. 2, 2007. The resurgent violence, which killed eight people since Thursday, destroyed a brief truce between Fatah and Hamas and forced thousands of people in Gaza to huddle in their homes to escape the crossfire. During the fighting, Fatah forces stormed the Islamic University and dragged out eight people it said were Iranians helping the militant group.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)